Hughes family business trucks on through the Oil Patch’s ‘certainty of uncertainty’
The Full House reunion has nothing on Hughes Oil Trucking’s family room at company headquarters. Some days it’s Family Ties and other days it’s Family Feud, but at the end of the day everyone leaves happy and ready for tomorrow. Founders Floyd and Barbara Hughes like that and so does everyone else.
They remodeled their building at 2513 North Mercury west of Odessa so all the principals could share ideas and help in one room. They have official weekly meeting, but the “family room” allows constant interaction. General Manager Jason Sutton says, “It was intended to have us in this office so that we were aware of what everyone was doing.” Barbara’s sister Shari Slate, Barbara’s son Brian and his wife, Jenny, all work together, although Brian actually offices upstairs. Floyd retired recently because of health issues.
“It gets crazy and rambunctious,” sometimes, Sutton said, but “there’s nothing that goes on that you basically don’t know about,” either. Barbara added, “It gets passionate sometimes.”
Three topics kick up the most dust: Money (collecting or billing), Federal regulations and keeping drivers and orders in line. “We all have ideas,” says Sutton. “One day you want to slap ‘em and one day you want to hold their hand.”
Brian Hughes notes that this arrangement allows the drivers of whom there are about 100 owner-operators, to feel the family love as well, whenever they come into the office.
Barbara admits to being the leader of the discussions because, “I’m probably the one that yells the most.” But that’s only because, “I’m passionate…this is my life! This is something that we did that we never, ever, ever thought we would ever do—had no idea when I started in the trucking business that we would ever own a company. We have been so blessed to do what we’ve been able to do. We could’ve been driving a truck for the rest of our lives.
The life-changing opportunity to move up from driving to owning came about with just over a week’s notice in the year 2000. They had been working under Shorty Hall since 1974, operating a small fleet under Shorty’s banner. In 2000, says Barbara, “They came to us on the 20th day of a 31-day month, and Shorty says, ‘Your licenses are up on the thirty-first, I don’t want to do this any more, I’m 87 years old and never really liked the trucking business anyway, so I’m through.’” At that point Barbara and Floyd looked at each other in almost a panic and wondered what to do.
No other company could buy Shorty out so, 11 days later they had started their own company with eight trucks—Floyd driving one, with Barbara, daughter Dorothy and Barbara’s sister Shari in the office.
Over the years they have weathered what Brian Hughes calls “the certainty of uncertainty” as oil prices fluctuate—paying cash for everything and putting back as much money as they could against the inevitable downturns, such as 2015-16 have seen.
Actually, 1974 was only the start of the business side. The start of Floyd and Barbara came about in an entangled meeting one evening 43 years ago that involved a seven-word pickup line that should NEVER have worked. Read more about that in the next issue.
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